Sweet sixteen
by LilyBartAndTheOthers
Summary: It wasn't supposed to turn out like that.


_**Sweet sixteen**_

It never felt right but she nonetheless did it, for whatever reason. One day her mother had looked up at her with this veil of failure clutched to her eyes but the words had stayed trapped in her throat and she had left the kitchen; drawing a line under their mutual past. She had stared at the adult's back and realized while the clock had stuck twelve that she was already considering her like a woman; a perfect stranger that she might have known once. The silence had become oppressive and without really knowing why, she had gone outside but never come back then. She hadn't slammed the door but simply vanished in the darkness of the night and as she had contemplated the stars glimmering in the sky, she had thought she had just died.

_Sweet sixteen could be bitter, sometimes._

The metal was always cold against her pale skin but as soon as her blood made its way out, her natural heat seemed to win over her first impression and it all got fuzzy. She was high while bleeding; not really the same sensation as a cocktail of pills mixed with a sip of alcohol but she still got dizzy and fine, on her own. She leaned her head backwards against the marble of the bathtub and sighed; slowly, loudly, satisfied before the odd pain of the self-injury.

She loved doing it in the evening when New York was flirting with an unexpected rest and the lights of the streets were reaching the walls of her manse. It sounded quiet all of a sudden as if the moon had stolen the boiling soul of the city and from the library she could see the cars below, sliding in silence over the asphalt in a peaceful harmony. She was always taken aback by the dark invasion over the sky, especially when she felt like she had just woken up and realized that the summer had gone, one more time. The fall was strong but melancholic; it made her feel sad and lonely and Lord knows how she loved that. She took off her clothes and let the smoothness of a bathrobe caress her body; then her fingers grabbed the handled and she locked the door, already lost in the excitement of the new scar she would observe in silence the next morning; fascinated by the way her madness had engraved its presence on her skin.

She had met her up by accident at a pub in The Village. Ten years had passed by but her bitter feelings had remained and she had smiled at her with the irony of fate.

_Look who the loser is now. Look who the waitress is. Look where money comes from._

She had thrown a bill of twenty on the table and pretended to taste the delicious aroma of victory over Lois. She hadn't forgotten her name but the status she used to have once and it was just that, a couple of identifications that had nothing to do with the roots that joined them in a wrong motion; a huge mistake. She had lost her mother the day she had turned sixteen and now it was all about anonymity. She was Karen, the other one had another name; period. It wasn't hard to keep a certain distance but control the movements of her heart whenever she saw the others hugging a relative back. She didn't know about that.

She hated coming back home after having spent the evening with them because reality hit her without any warning and she knew she had failed. She may have turned the page but also started writing the wrong words. She would have loved being them, finding some normality into the coldness of her days. It seemed so easy, so close. Perhaps she simply lacked the right gene, the one that set off a sentiment of well-being and spread happiness over the soul. There was nothing sweet in her existence as if she had signed a pact with the frustration of eternal pain; a silent one.

She brought her lips to her arm and let the blood reach her tongue, stirring up her senses. She closed her eyes but lost her balance and ended up laid down on her back against the tiles of the floor.

_What if I die tonight?_

They would find her body the next morning or even later if she managed to pass completely unnoticed. After all she was only required when it came to money so unless someone was wishing for some bills, she wouldn't be thought about. Her complexion would look perfect, so pale; fragile like a statue of ice and the blood would have dried on her arm to let a pink path as the memory that she might have been alive once. Their cries wouldn't be honest but simply polite, conventional. And at the end of the day they would have already forgotten her features and the sound of her voice. She would probably feel relieved for having left but from wherever she would be, her heart would keep on greening with envy as soon as she would look at them ; praying so hard that she could have done the same and not constantly weep away the anger of her mistakes. And she would leave a note to reassure herself, the words sliding along the sheet of paper like the evidence of a truth.

_The dress was white and pure, as light as a cloud. I might have been cold in it for being in February and it was made of cotton but we don't care about that when we're still young and hopeful. I don't know where it is now, probably lost somewhere in a cardboard box unless it has been sold for a very long while. __And I wanted to twirl around in the backyard while wearing it; barefoot on the grass. My sister had told me that I looked an angel. I just didn't know I would be a fallen one. I didn't want to argue and even less go away and die. How come my sweet sixteen turned out to be so sad?_

_Karen_

But she wouldn't stop breathing that night. She would just go to bed, wake up in the morning, look at the new scar and head to the office; for Grace, for Will, for Jack, for her. Because even she died, she would miss them too much from out there, somewhere among the stars.


End file.
